Science is sound despite “Climategate” claims, finds US probe
- 25 Feb 2011, 11:45
- The Carbon Brief
(c) NOAA
An influential investigation in the United States into the emails hacked from the Climatic
Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the
United Kingdom has found
no evidence that climate change research had been
manipulated.
The probe - conducted at the behest of the Republican climate
sceptic senator James Inhofe - examined the emails sent between CRU
staff and scientists at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US.
The report, published by
the inspector general of the Commerce Department, which runs
the NOAA, stated: "We did not find any evidence that NOAA
inappropriately manipulated data."
Mary Glackin, the deputy undersecretary for operations at the
NOAA, said: "None of the investigations have found any evidence to
question the ethics of our scientists or raise doubts about NOAA's
understanding of climate change science."
Research from the CRU was used in the 2007 reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "Climategate" was
quoted by Republicans before a vote in the House of Representatives
this week to cut all US funding for the IPCC. The proposed
amendment to the Environmental Protection Agency budget will now go
before the Senate.
Inhofe - who has previously described climate change as a hoax -
responded to the announcement by claiming that, contrary to the
conclusions in the executive summary, the report did show
scientists "engaged in data manipulation".
The latest findings follow five influential investigations -
three in the UK and two in the US - in the wake of the
"Climategate" incident when emails were hacked from the CRU in
November 2009 and posted on climate sceptic blogs. None of the
probes have found evidence of scientific manipulation.
The CRU emails have been examined by the Science and Technology
Committee of the House of Commons, the independent Muir Russell
inquiry, the Science Assessment Panel and two investigations at the
Pennsylvania State University. The InterAcadamy Council has also
examined the processes of the IPCC reports.